Shell may be on the verge of turning one of its grand downstream ambitions into a very public admission that the numbers no longer add up.
According to the Financial Times, Shell’s U.S. chemicals assets have attracted interest from potential bidders including ExxonMobil, LyondellBasell, Apollo and the chemicals arm of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation.
The assets could fetch as much as $8 billion, although the process remains preliminary and there is no guarantee that a transaction will take place.
Financial Times: Shell draws Exxon interest in $8bn US chemical assets sale
Investing.com: Shell’s chemicals exit draws interest from Exxon and LyondellBasell
ChatGPT Images: A satirical illustration of Shell’s Monaca petrochemical plant as a giant golden plastic funnel: Pennsylvania taxpayers pour $1.65 billion into the top, while plastic pellets, smoke, warning notices, and tiny “promised jobs” crumbs fall out the bottom. In the background, executives in hard hats point at a “Petrochemical Renaissance” banner peeling off the wall.
Shell’s flagship petrochemical complex in western Pennsylvania was supposed to be a triumph — a $15-billion monument to America’s shale-gas renaissance, turning cheap fracked ethane into the plastic pellets that fill everything from shampoo bottles to supermarket packaging.
The Cracker That Was Promised: Energy Dominance, Plastic Pellets and the Art of the Deal That Wasn’t
Introduction: A Troubling Cross-Era Review Shell Cannot Ignore
This article is Part 2 of a series on Shell, Hakluyt & Company and Wikipedia. 
Shell’s plastic palace, the “brilliant basics,” and the slow-motion corporate moonwalk toward the exit
